


That Cruel Monster We Call Love

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [41]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: (blame this on Fennec), Coping, Emotional Constipation, F/M, Family, Fatherhood, Feelings, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, Marshal Hotcakes™, Missing Scene, Spoilers for S02E07, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28089513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: “Din.” Cara's soft voice called him back from his musings. It was weird to hear his own name, but also comforting in a way he hadn't been expecting. She knew the man he was beneath his armour and it was him, flesh and bones, she was here for. For the first time in a long time, Din felt important as a person, and not just as a warrior.Cara waited for him to turn to her, then, still impossibly softly, muttered, “What happened in there?”Din hung his head with helpless sigh, heart sinking. He was not surprised she had sensed something was off. Mayfeld was right: she was all under his skin.He felt the shame burn inside as memories of what he had done come back in shards, tearing through his soul until it started to bleed. He didn't regret any of it, but this didn't change how wrong it had been, the dishonour it had brought upon him.“I gave up everything for the kid.”She gave him a slow, careful nod, not daring to look at him. Her gaze was fixed on her hands, her breath calm, soothing. She was probably the one thing keeping Din sane right now.“Do you think it was worth it?”[ Missing scenes we deserved to see in The Believer. ]
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin, Din Djarin & Fennec Shand, Din Djarin & Migs Mayfeld, Din Djarin/Cara Dune
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [41]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 33
Kudos: 169





	That Cruel Monster We Call Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [promiseddifferent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/promiseddifferent/gifts).



> This work is dedicated to promiseddifferent because she brightened up my day, this morning, and gave me a boost of energy to kick my cold in the butt and get up to finish this! ❤
> 
> Fair warning: if any of you have read Name1's latest fic, Two's Company, Five is a Crowd, you might see some very evident similarities in some parts of the dialogues. That's because we share one brain cell across the globe, apparently. 😶 (This is not a compliment in any way.😂)

Fennec and Boba were watching as two distant figures walked toward the ship across the lava plane. One was the Mandalorian's silvery outline, the other was definitely a woman's silhouette—a very curvacious woman's silhouette, Fennec noticed with an appreciative smirk—who sported a battered set of armour and had a massive rifle casually thrown over her shoulder. As they approached, Fennec could see they were talking; Mando's visibly more relaxed bearing and the radiant smile on the woman's lips suggested they were happy to see each other.

 _Well well well,_ Fennec chuckled to herself when she realised Mando's friend was not only a very well-forged soldier, but also a remarkably beautiful specimen of human female. Fennec crossed her arms and leant against the frame of the open ramp's mouth, observing with increasing interest the two figures' body language: she had never seen Mando's guard so low as it was now; he was walking so close to the woman his gloved hand kept brushing against hers, over and over. Had it been anybody else, she knew he would have jerked away at once. This case, somehow, seemed different. Unique, even.

“Keep an eye on those two,” Boba grumbled, appearing behind her, “I don't like the way they look at each other.”

There was no way to tell exactly how Mando was looking at the woman, but the constant turning of his helmet in her direction and the frequent alignment of its visor's trajectory with her lips suggested just enough to guess what sort of bind tied these two together, whether they were aware of this or not.

“I know, right?” she said, intrigued. “You can feel the sexual tension from here.”

Boba sent a grumpy glare toward Mando and his charming _friend,_ then turned around with a grunt.

“Make sure they keep their hands to each other. This is a respectable ship.”

Fennec grinned.

“Aye, Captain.”

  
  


*

  
  


Din was having second thoughts. He trusted Fennec and Fett, however shady they might appear, but involving Mayfeld in this operation might not have been the best idea, at least for Din's own sanity. They were sitting side to side on the floor of Fett's ship, and Mayfeld hadn't stopped talking for a whole lousy minute since Cara had shoved them on board. Din was starting to suspect it was a tactic to get himself killed so that he wouldn't be turned back in once the job was done. Din had to keep reminding himself this was all for the kid. He could do this. He could manage not to kill this man for the next couple of days. So far, Din had been successfully able to lock himself away from his incessant rambling, and he could have probably lasted for much longer, hadn't Mayfeld, probably pissed with his imperturbability, decided to start poking the wrong raw nerve.

“So, what's the deal with you and Hot Stuff?”

The question was so unexpected Din forgot to ignore him.

“Uh?”

It was a mistake, because Mayfeld realised that was a fault in Din's wall he could breach through, so he insisted: “Marshal Dune. You know,” he nodded toward the other side of the cockpit, where Cara was talking to Fett and Fennec, “big doe eyes, sweet body, could crush your skull between her thi—”

“Wash your mouth out, Mayfeld,” Din hissed before he could stop himself. He was too tense to overlook such a rude objectification of the person he trusted most in the whole galaxy.

Mayfeld shrugged. “Whoa, okay, sensitive subject. Alright. I'll shut up.”

He did shut up, but his eyes remained glued to Cara for the entire two blissful minutes he stayed quiet. At the beginning of the third minute, Din felt a prod in his side.

“You hit that? Of course you didn't. 'cause you're a gentleman, right?” Mayfeld gave him a lopsided snicker. “Would never just fuck a woman, even when she looks like _that._ What a waste, with the way she looks at you...”

“She doesn't look at me in any way,” Din cut him off. This was good, in a way: it was keeping his mind occupied and away from the dark thoughts that had been clouding it. Hope was not lost; he needed to be strong and motivated if he wanted to get the kid back, and this moron's theatrics were actually helping him to stay afloat in a tide of angst.

Mayfeld leant toward him and whispered conspiratorially, “Get a grip, man! The electricity between you two could power this whole ship and then some!”

It was suddenly very warm under Din's helmet. Fett needed to check his heating regulation.

“Cara is my friend,” he said, perhaps a bit too curtly, “I respect her.”

Mayfeld sneered, “You realise that's a requirement for any healthy relationship, right? That includes _romanti_ _—_ _”_

A shadow had appeared over them. Din shut his eyes at the sight of Cara's boots and prayed she hadn't caught any of Mayfeld's disrespectful banthashit.

“What's going on, here?” she asked, hands on her hips. She shot Din an amused grin. “You look like you're about to slit my inmate's throat.”

“Probably because I am,” he sighed.

“Don't get blood all over my ship!” Fett snapped from across the room.

“I was just telling Mando, here, how lucky he is to have an asset like you on his side,” Mayfeld chimed in, offering Cara smarmy simper, which Cara returned amiably.

“Yeah, I'm sure that's the reason he was about to slice you up.”

“How can you tell, anyway?” Mayfeld argued with a sideways nod to Din. “He's more armour than man.”

Cara's face was lit up by a smile as she met Din's eyes through his visor.

“Is he? I can read him pretty well.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mayfeld scoffed out a laugh, “I'm sure you're all under his sk— Ow!” He turned to Din with an outraged glare, massaging this middle of his chest where the back of a heavy beskar gauntlet just _accidentally_ hit him.

The commotion lured Fennec over, who gave them all an inquiring scowl that didn't match the smirk painted on her lips.

“Are you kids done quarrelling, here?”

Mayfeld put on an innocent expression. “Apologies, ma'am. I was just complimenting Mando and the marshal for making much a perfect cou— _team._ Perfect _team.”_

Din could swear Fennec knew _everything,_ included what even Cara hadn't heard. By the way she glanced down at him, in fact, he had an odd feeling she knew even more that he did himself.

“They really do, don't they?” She turned her knowing smirk to Cara, to which Cara didn't seem to know how to respond.

“We need your intel, sweetheart,” Fennec told Mayfeld, holding out a hand to pull him up. “Care to join us for a sec?”

“We'd better pitch in, too,” Cara said, “this is gonna be a hell-ride.”

If someone had told Din one day he would break his Creed, he wouldn't have believed them. If someone had told him he would break it in front of someone like Migs Mayfeld, he would have made them pay for the insult with their own lives. Now he was limping out of this mission with a noose of guilt around his neck and a newly found respect for Mayfeld he didn't really know what to do with. He felt elated for the success, and for a long while didn't even think about the consequences of his actions. They had obtained what they had come for and walked away, that was all that counted.

Later, when Cara announced the unfortunate demise of Inmate 34667 in the explosion of the Imperial refinery of Morak, Din was shocked to feel a smile pull at the corners of his mouth: she was putting herself and her reputation on the line to pay off a debt _Din_ had with this man, and Din was aware this was not a favour he could ever pay up for. Something this big and this selfless was beyond gratitude, beyond honour: all he had to return Cara's gesture was unspeakable, unconditional _love._ So he looked at her and hoped— _prayed_ with all of himself she could read through him as she'd always done and feel what his heavy heart was screaming. Her eyes scrutinised him for a long while, bright and intense and breath-taking, and he knew she could hear everything he couldn't say.

“I can't pay you back for this,” he told her. It was half a thank you and half an apology, and neither was what he really had lingering upon his tongue.

Cara's look became serious, and slightly sad. “This is not a business transaction. There is no bill at the end of this thing. Stop offending me with this crap.”

“Forgive me,” Din murmured. “Cara, I—”

The thing on the tip of his tongue had just started slipping out when Fennec came out of the Slave I to call them in.

“Let's get outta here, guys. Save the dopey looks for later.”

Without Mayfeld's big mouth, the ship was eerily quiet. While Fett and Fennec punched in the new coordinates, Din dragged himself down the ladder, collapsed against the wall, and sank down to the floor with an exhausted groan. His whole body was tense and aching.

Cara showed up a few minutes later. She sat down with him, sat quietly for a while, elbows propped on her bent knees, and just let him be for a while. Din was immensely thankful of that—her mere presence, the reassuring warmth of her finally by his side again. There was no one else he would have wanted to be with right now; Cara _knew_ —knew him, knew how fond he was of the child, knew his strengths and his weaknesses and respected them equally. Without her, the kid would have been lost a long time ago, back on Sorgan, and this was something he would never forget. What he felt for this woman... that was something he could barely grasp. He had just started to accept his love for this kid— _Grogu_ —and he couldn't even begin to think about facing another emotional shock like maybe admitting he was—

“Din.” Cara's soft voice called him back from his musings. It was weird to hear his own name, but also comforting in a way he hadn't been expecting. She knew the man he was beneath his armour and it was him, flesh and bones, she was here for. For the first time in a long time, Din felt important as a person, and not just as a warrior.

Cara patiently waited for him to turn to her, then, still impossibly softly, muttered, “What happened in there?”

Din hung his head with helpless sigh, heart sinking. He was not surprised she had sensed something was off. Mayfeld was right: she was all under his skin.

He felt the shame burn inside as memories of what he had done come back in shards, tearing through his soul until it started to bleed. He didn't regret any of it, but this didn't change how wrong it had been, the dishonour it had brought upon him.

“I gave up everything for the kid,” he said in a broken whisper that trembled in his throat as it crawled out. Cara stilled beside him, her silence growing wistful, and the temperature around them seemed to drop. Din didn't need to say more, she didn't need to ask. They had never needed words, barely needed looks. There were things about each other they had always simply _felt,_ and this was one of those. Din was glad he didn't have to say it out loud, because he had sworn to himself he would never talk about it, but just to be able to somehow _admit_ it and get such a burden off his chest was a relief he couldn't have imagined, and he knew there was nobody else out there who could have understood what he was going through as well as Cara did.

She gave him a slow, careful nod, not daring to look at him. Her gaze was fixed on her hands, her breath calm, soothing. She was probably the one thing keeping Din sane right now.

“Do you think it was worth it?”

It was a rhetorical question, but he answered all the same.

“Yes.” He had no doubt, no second thoughts. He had done the right thing. “But I still feel like I don't know who I am anymore.”

A smile tinged Cara's tone, “You found something that knocked your Creed and all of yourself off the top of your priorities.”

“Disgrace?”

“Love.”

Din found himself smiling, too. She was right, that was the one thing that mattered more than honour to a Mandalorian: love, family.

They fell back into a silence so thick with thoughts and repressed feelings it was hard to even keep on breathing. What they were heading into could easily turn into a tragedy for them all, the last thing they needed was sabotaging their concentration with ill-timed confessions.

“Do you know what a snowling is?” Cara asked out of the blue.

Din had never heard that name before. “No.”

“It was a sparrow species we had on Alderaan,” Cara informed him, “lived by the mountains in very cold temperatures. When their eggs hatched, snowlings plucked themselves naked feather by feather to keep their little ones warm while they hunted. It made them weak, and vulnerable,” Cara turned slightly toward Din, but kept her eyes low, “exposed them to potential predators in the snow, but they wouldn't stop, because there was no other way to keep their babies safe.”

He said nothing. His mouth was dry and his eyes dangerously damp. He swallowed a lump and blinked—once, twice—until the dampness in his eyes receded.

Cara let her legs slide down to the ground, crossed her ankles as she stretched them.

“You're a snowling, Din,” she said in a tender whisper. “You just plucked yourself naked for your child and you're hurting and bleeding, and feel weak and ashamed, but what you did out there was very brave, and you should be proud of yourself.”

There was nothing he could do to hold back the tears. He just let them flow and pretended they weren't there, safe under his beskar shield, and just allowed himself to soak up Cara's closeness until her familiar warmth reached his soul and the ice he had inside started melting away.

She took his hand in hers, squeezed it tight. “You gave everything for your kid,” she said, her thumb stroking the back of his hand, “as any loving parent would have done in your place. You're a hero, and I'm sure your people would agree with me.”

Suddenly, his tough facade collapsed. There was no point in pretending he was fine when every inch of him felt like he was crumbling down. Without shame—because he knew she would understand—he let his head fall into the crook of her neck and slumped in her arms like an empty shell, and when Cara's hand came up to rest on the back of his helmet to hold him tight to her chest he accepted his brokenness for what it was, and just let it be.

“Where would I be without you?” he wondered as the tension gradually washed out of his body, leaving him limp, but blissfully so.

Cara chuckled gently. “Luckily for you, that's a question you'll never have to answer.”

When Din finally had the strength to pull back, Cara let him go without a word or a single glance. She respected the intimacy of his grief and he was immensely grateful for that.

“You're risking everything to help me,” he said. His voice was still hoarse from the tears that were by now dry trails down his cheeks.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

Cara shook her head as if she didn't know what to reply, then seemed to change her mind, shrugged, and just said, “Let's just say I found something that knocked me off the top of my priorities, too.”

The look she gave him then... that was something Din would never forget for the rest of his life. It conveyed all the words, all the feelings he was holding back himself. This might be the last thing they did, but they would do it together.

“We might not make it out of this alive,” he murmured, reaching out to take her hand back. Cara let him.

“I know.”

“If we do, there is something I want you to know.”

She smiled in way that told him she had a very precise idea of what he was implying. It was a brave and very bittersweet smile.

“And if we don't?”

Din exhaled a weary sigh. That was the part he didn't like to consider. He took a fond glance at her, mentally thanked her for everything she had done and was still doing for him without asking for anything in return. All the love he could give her would never be enough to match hers, but he was willing to do his best and try.

“Then I'll have one more regret to carry to my grave,” he said.

Cara tugged at his hand, giggling under her breath.

“Always so dramatic,” she teased with a glint of raw emotion in her eyes. “Let's get the kid back,” she added. “We'll prevent any regrets when this shit is over.”

They were pulleing each other to their feet when Fennec climbed down to announce they were about to touch down for fuel.

Din stepped back to let Cara go up first. He was about to follow but Fennec grabbed his elbow and pulled him back. When he looked at her, she was holding out her open palm to him.

“What's this?” he asked, staring at the handful of unmistakable rings wrapped up one by one in shiny foil. Fennec pressed them into his hand with a smirk.

“Let's call it _protection,”_ she purred. “Something you won't regret having in your pocket when you're finally alone with Marshal Hotcakes.”

Din gave her a silent glare. “Is this a conspiracy?”

Fennec arched her eyebrows at him, and Din bit his tongue. He really didn't want her to know he had sort of had this almost exact conversation with Mayfeld, too.

“Never mind.”

Fennec shook her head sympathetically and put her hands on his shoulders with an eerily indulgent smile.

“Look, your priority is the kid, now, I get it, and I promise we're gonna get him back,” she said, sounding almost affectionate, “but take a sister's advice: when this is over, get your shit together and tell her how you feel. Then make good use of these little guys.” She forcibly closed his fingers over her unlikely gift, then broke into a sly chuckle. “Or don't. You make a very good dad, after all.”

She disappeared up the ladder, leaving Din dumbfounded with half a dozen condoms in his hand and his heart feeling much lighter than it had just a few hours ago.

He was ready to pluck off any feather left on himself to get his kid back.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is apparently my 100th fic on Ao3? Wow, what a ride! 😱
> 
> This story wasn't planned, it just bloomed out of my feelings after watching The Believer and it couldn't be helped. It was initially supposed to be funny and humorous but at 3 am last night I woke up with the angsty part nagging me and that's where the birds part came in. Humour & angst... this is new even to me! Oh boy. 😅
> 
> I would love to hear what you thought about this! I know a lot of readers are afraid their comments will be lame but I promise you everything means a lot to an author, even just a small "I loved this!". Thank you in advance for the love. ❤


End file.
